I've been reading this question about a user getting a bounty in a dishonest way. My suggestion was to dissociate that answer from the user's account, but I wasn't sure if that would remove the bounty. A moderator responded to my comment saying that they don't think that post dissociation will remove the bounty, but they aren't sure:

All reputation you had previously gained/lost from the post will also be reversed.

But it isn't clear if this also applies to bounties, or only to votes and accepted answers.

So what happens to bounties on a post dissociation? Does the bounty get refunded to the user who gave it? Does the user who earned it lose it again but without anyone else earning it? Does the user who earned it get to keep it?

1 Answer
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A bounty award is just a type of vote, and that vote works the same way as any other vote on a post disassociation. The user's ID is simply removed from it and it is orphaned to the abyss like all the other votes on the post. The owner of the post does lose any reputation associated with the bounties on it. It is not refunded. The bounty isn't destroyed - it's still assigned to the post as usual, just nobody gets the reward anymore.